Paper Monitor: Evening pleasure

The sun is sinking lower in the sky, so it's a look at the evening press for Paper Monitor.

Stories about teenagers interacting with their grans are always life affirming, and one in the Manchester Evening News doesn't disappoint. Eighteen-year-old Jamie Nokes set up a Twitter account starring his grandma, 70, only a week ago and it already has 25,000 followers from across the world. Why? Because Jean is always featured balancing something on her head.

The first item was a soft drink and an ironing board quickly followed - with a bit of help from the back of a chair. Then a microwave. "My mates think it's hilarious and my gran just thinks everyone is nutty. I don't think she really realised how big it's become. It's just madness."

Now Paper Monitor will be keeping an eye out on its street to ensure there isn't any unusual DIY activity going on. The Edinburgh Evening News reports on cannabis farmers who, worried that their plants were giving off too much of a tell-tale smell, resorted to painting and repainting the outside of their property to try to hide their activities.

A local shopkeeper is quoted by the paper as saying: "We were laughing because every time a coat dried they would start again with another one. They must have painted it dozens of times because they were doing it about five hours a day for five days."

Finally a couple of gems from the Nottingham Post. The city council has been branded "bonkers," the paper reports, for painting double yellow lines on both sides of a cycle lane. The track is too narrow for a car, so questions have been raised as to why the lines were necessary in the first place.

"Rules gone mad" and a "waste of money" are just a few ways one local described the move.

Caroline Nash from the council, acknowledges the lines might look "peculiar" to the casual observer but states that they are necessary to protect cyclists.

"Sadly, sometimes drivers park half or wholly on pavements making it difficult for cyclists and pedestrians," says Nash. "For the avoidance of doubt and, importantly, so that we can enforce the restrictions, we have placed yellow lines on both sides of the track."

It all goes on in Nottingham. In another item, the newspaper reports that police are getting "a tad concerned about maintaining law and order" during the annual Kimberley Pram Race.

The race, the newspaper explains, involves people getting dressed up, pushing each other around in a pram and collecting money as they go. Oh, and stopping off at the pub.

A local beat officer has written to the parish council "expressing his concern that while for many years the pram race has been promoted as a family day out, it has in reality become nothing more than a 'street drinking event'".

Paper Monitor is curious to know whether being drunk in charge of a pram is an offence.